


Love, Reign O'er Me (A King Is Made)

by butteredflame



Series: Did I Do the Right Thing? [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Based on a song, Episode Fix-It: s08e06 The Iron Throne, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Honesty, Intimacy, Jon chooses Dany, King's Landing, Marriage Proposal, Misogyny, Politics, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Speculation, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-13 02:11:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butteredflame/pseuds/butteredflame
Summary: Ash falls from the sky in droves onto the smoldering ruins of King’s Landing. Now that Dany is poised to begin her supremacy on the Iron Throne, Jon must answer to her and his own demons. Their bond heals and at last, amidst salt and smoke, a King is made.---fill for #jonerysweek2019 prompt: Day One | Foreshadowing





	Love, Reign O'er Me (A King Is Made)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Jonerys Appreciation Week! I'm late but I think this still counts. As we all know, working with canon material is now a painful endeavor. But I had to fix that last conversation, in at least one fic. I want Jon to not betray Dany and for her to rule and for him to become King. I also want to give rise to much of the colorful Biblical imagery GRRM uses b/w them and in the broader asoiaf universe. Based on [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gDbAtWpoA6k) song of the same title by The Who. So that’s what happens here. 
> 
> Disclaimer: As always, D&D can suck it. This is for my baby, a few friends and me, just to feel a little better. I hope this makes the reader feel the same.

 

 

_i._

_She moved in quickly._

The thought passes through Jon’s mind, unbidden, as he walks to the north gate of the Red Keep. It’s sick. And wrong. But a thrill rushes through him when he presses his palm to the stone, feels it vibrate with the force of their cries. The few remaining thousand Unsullied and Dothraki have squeezed into the immense cobbled barbican, to see their Queen after their conquest. Jon follows a dozen paces behind Daenerys, shrinking in her shadow as much as he marvels in the strength it gives him

He picks up a few words and key phrases. The lords of Westeros will be afraid. Too, the slavers’ cities as far east as Volantis. But he is not. Even as ash falls from the sky like snow and the roars are the only sounds buffeting the utter quiet of sudden, mass death, he thinks,  _Aye, my Queen. As promised, they gave you the Seven Kingdoms._

It didn’t happen with his help, of course. He never undermined Daenerys’s claim to the Throne, but he also never took a position on her military plans to get there. Not enough to have foreseen this. The thought stings more tellingly when the Hand of the Queen tosses his pin down the steps and signs a fate he’d long ago sealed by letting his captive brother go. When the Unsullied take Lord Tyrion to his prison cell, however, it feels too little too late.

Her passing glare seems to expose him-- he'd been lame, cowardly, malleable--and he watches her enter the palace grounds with half a dozen Unsullied at her flank, feeling butchered and left to fend off the conspiracies of the Queen's enemies, alone.  _When she had begged,_ he realizes,  _she'd meant to avoid this very feeling._

He tilts his head to the sky and its rivers of smoke, trying to ready himself for the assault.  

 

 

 

_ii._

The Traitor’s Walk is a pathway that leads to a squat, half-round tower holding cells for prisoners from the lowborn to the highborn. The Queen’s men threw Lord Tyrion into a small, personal cell with windows that let in the unreasonably bright, soot-choked light. Jon seats himself on a dusty chair and gazes out of the windows, unable to look at the lord as he goes on.

“ _The bells!”_ he says. “Jaime rang them! Daenerys heard them!”

Baffled by his dimness, Jon snaps, “You gave me that request on the battlefield! I refused it, yet if I hadn’t, how could I have spoken with Daenerys about it, when she was already in the sky? Tyrion, have some sense. It was not her responsibility to respond to the bells.”

“And where is her sense? Your Queen has seen enough to know that city bells rung under siege signals surrender!”

“She did not want their surrender.”

“Then I suppose she never did.”

“ _Tyrion—_ “

“ _She never did._ ”

“She had! She just…didn’t anymore.”

He sits back, stunned. “You agree with her.”

Jon shakes his head. He doesn’t know what happened, why she did what she did. But he will find out. Unsatisfied, the lord argues that each time Daenerys had marched through cities and slain evil men to their cheers, she grew more powerful and more sure that she knows what is right. When Jon defers to her in response, Tyrion asks if he would have ended the war differently.

“It doesn’t matter what I would do," he says, and watches his face fall.

"It matters more than anything.”

Jon frowns at him, deeply irked by the conversation and all like it that had come since his greater claim to the Iron Throne was made known.  _She is my Queen,_ he thinks.  _If she is a monster, so am I._  After all, he cannot ignore the thrill he’d felt when the first dozen walls of dragonflame erupted from  _Drogon’s_  beastly jaws at Daenerys’s command. Tyrion doesn’t understand what that’s like, nor does he know what it’s like to believe in Daenerys so fiercely he would—and perhaps already had—let her burn the world to commence her reign.

_If she is a monster, so am I._

When the sun finally breaches the clouds, Jon takes his leave, feeling as gutted as the Red Keep.

 

 

 

_iii._

In his youth, Jon had learned about the castles of Westeros from Maester Luwin. Those that were built by the Targaryens are fearsome and large. And yet, Winterfell is larger than the Red Keep, as are many others that were built by the First Men under the Stark kings. It stuns him, makes him wonder about the scope and power of their command.

Ruminating on this, he takes The Traitor’s Walk straight to the Great Hall and slips on three inches of ash in some places, which worries the dagger hidden below his vest. Longclaw is taken from him, but he makes it past Daenerys’s line of Unsullied without them finding the dagger. Just a few dragon-sized steps from Maegor’s Holdfast,  _Drogon_  slumbers before the Great Hall. He opens one large red eye for Jon, then lets him through, revealing other relics of the Targaryen reign, like the dusty suits of black armor that dot the Hall’s corridors. It reminds him again of Winterfell.  _Surely,_ he thinks, sensing the power that brims in his bloodline, _Valyrians and the First Men_   _were one and the same._

No one can deny the Queen's political conquest. After eviscerating Cersei Lannister’s reign with the power that had built the city of King’s Landing and united the Seven Kingdoms under the rule of the Lord Paramount, Daenerys Targaryen is poised to begin her supremacy. To Jon, the use of  _fire_ was harsh, cruel and morally abhorrent, yet it was not the decision of a Mad Queen.

Despite what his family and friends have tried to convince him, the decision was likely in line with her objective to solve many of the realm’s problems. The law and order of a proper Targaryen Restoration will curb the lords’ prerogatives and force them to meet her demands. Likewise, her ability to quickly travel on dragonback will pressure them to take her seriously. In this way, the worst of her bloodshed is behind her. _That it must be is the issue_. The irony pains him. 

The weight of the dagger has become overwhelming. When he finally enters the throne room, his hands shake. The vaulted ceiling has been ripped open and the high arched glass-stained windows are torn in half, barely standing without significant walls to support them. Fear finally trickles down his spine.

But Daenerys has just approached the Iron Throne.

And she is so beautiful.

Jon removes the dagger and throws it aside. Sudden relief and horror take him to his knees, but Daenerys runs to him. He holds her away.

“Jon, I am not afraid of a dagger!” she reproaches. “Neither am I afraid of you!”

“You should be! Everyone wants your head, Daenerys. They want me to…” He gulps. Their eyes track to the dagger and she squeezes his arm. After holding himself back from her touch for so long, now, he marvels and takes her hand. It feels small and lethal against his chest. “You should have told me you were going to do this. You should have told me.”

“You weren’t here,” she says softly. “You say you support my claim, but you’ve taken no position on battle plans since you rejected me. How can you know my secrets, when you won’t stand for me and for that reason my enemies seek to use you against me?”

The truth hurts. His heart is strong, but fallible. It must be, when she has been left vulnerable and those who support her are trying hard to influence him. Yet Tyrion’s words still knock around in his head.  _Who is more dangerous, now, than the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?_ The lord’s assessment is not accurate, has not been so for a long time.

What is accurate, then?

Daenerys is not afraid of the dagger or of Jon. He believes in her, still loves her, so he lets her pull him closer and touches his forehead to hers as tears sting his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Daenerys. I should have been here. I talked you down from doing this once, I could have done it again. I should have been here…” He wants to weep, but he has so many questions for her. “They were executing Lannister men in the streets. They said they were taking your orders.”

“It was necessary.”

He frowns. “What of Lord Tyrion, then?”

“He conspired with my enemies against me. How have you treated the people who’d done the same to you? Even when it broke your heart?” 

“Forgiven them.”

“Are you lying?” she scoffs. “ _I_ can’t forgive them. I made every effort to make peace with Cersei but she refused.”

“And so, you laid waste to the city!”

“She used their innocence against me.”

“Even so! Have you been down there? Have you seen it? Women and children, burned!”

“It is the way of war.” Her tone brooks no room for argument. “I had to lay waste to the city  _our_ ancestors built. I had to communicate to the lords of Westeros the power of my promises.”

“Aye, Daenerys, you are as good as your word and that’s why I believe in you. But how will we get there? The world we need must be a world of mercy!”

“Small mercies will not get us there,” she corrects. “To hide behind them is deceitful, when the world we need will not be built by people loyal to the old one.”

“Then your enemies are all around you.”

The thought saddens him, but she is resolute. “They are. And they always were.”

As if in response, the wind picks up and knocks into them. He holds onto her tightly now, because she’s slipping away. He doesn’t want to lose her. He can’t be the one to slay…her…

“Give me a reason,” he pleads. “They think you will hurt me because of my claim. They have laid your life in my hands. It is yours but they want me to take it.”

“They are wrong,” she presses. “I would never hurt you.”

He drags a thumb along her jawline. “I know, my Queen…”

“Don’t…” She turns her head away. The endearment pains her, now, after what he’s done.

“I’m sorry.”

But her eyes still burn. “You are safe with me.”

“I know, Daenerys. I know…”

It’s why he loves her and fight it as he might, it will never end. It’s why he supported her from the moment she swore herself to his cause of defeating the Night King and his army of the dead. It’s why he hoped the lords of Westeros would love her, too, because those who follow her find safety under her authority.

If only Varys and Tyrion hadn’t betrayed her. If only Sansa and Arya hadn’t searched for reasons to undermine her without a word of thanks ever leaving their lips. If only Jon hadn’t rejected her and left her alone and without guidance… They are wrong about him and Daenerys, and to their misfortune, it will be their weakness.

“They will not use me against you.” His words please her, make her eyes fall shut as she drags a hand up and under his arm. He huffs and shakes his head. “Yet what you’ve done is wrong. I have to make it right, Daenerys.”

“You do not. It will be righted in its own time.”

“ _In its own time?”_ he scoffs, receiving her frown. “I know you will rebuild what you’ve burned down. I know you’ll restrain the lords and their wants, and see that the commonfolk thrive. But what more  _could_  you have in mind?”

“More, Jon. There is so much more we can do for the realm.” She pauses, considers her next words. “I understand the reticence to explore the unknown but I do not shy from it. The new world will be good because I know what is good.”

He dips his head.

“So do you.”

“No,” he murmurs. “I don’t.”

How can he, when he’s wanted to see her reign begin for so long, now? When his yearning still stings like a thorn in his side? When this love will never end?

“You do,” she whispers, gathering him closer by the other arm. “You’ve always known.”

He can no longer refute it.  _If she is a monster, so am I._ As his arms wind around her, he has the fleeting thought to shelter her from the cold, somehow, and it reminds him of all the others... 

“What about everyone else?” he asks weakly. “All the other people who think they know what’s good?”

“They don’t get to choose.”

“Dany, please. Don’t do this.”

“No.  _Listen to me._ They don’t get to choose. But I do. You do.”

Jon’s brows rise with Tyrion’s words.  _It matters more than anything._ When she continues he huffs, stunned.

“This is our reason. Like everyone else, we risk our lives for the sake of what is good. But we don’t burn in the fire, and when we die we are brought back to life. Not to bring peace to an undeserving world, but to convict it of its injustice.”

He inhales deeply.

“It has always been,” she smiles, vulnerable and bright. “Since you were a boy with a bastard’s name and I was a little girl who couldn’t count to twenty.”

He splutters a laugh. Eyes memorizing him, she nods approvingly, and her smile blooms further.

“Since you came to me on Dragonstone with tales of dead men! And though you bent the knee to me, it was I who vowed myself to you.” Her hand finds his and he closes his eyes, trembling at the memory of their exchange in the caves of Dragonstone. “I wanted to be yours. So, I delayed my war to win yours, only to lose everyone and everything in the aftermath.” He kisses her hair remorsefully. Breathless now, she thumbs the delicate skin of his wrist, and he feels so small in her arms. “Yet I count it all as gain, with you. Jon…I would do anything for you.”

“Daenerys.  _Daenerys_.” His heart skips as he wipes away her tears. He touches his forehead to hers, breathless at the feeling of being so treasured. It glorifies her. She shines. “I wanted to be yours.”

“I know, but why do you tell me you don’t want me? When I can tell that you do? Don’t answer.”  

He dips his head, a silent thanks for steeling his tongue before he could let something foolish rise. She curls the fingers of one palm over his shoulder, and he can feel her tension, doesn’t know who reflects who.

“I am yours, Jon.” Her eyes fall shut. He steals a kiss to her eyelid and she grumbles. “I am serious. You say you don’t want me, but I myself don’t need you, so what am I doing? Will you make a fool of me?”

“No, my love. No,” he vows. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

“But will you?”

“No. I will not make a fool of you.” If he doesn’t get this right, they’ll continue to spend their nights apart, alone. It’s absurd, because they are man and woman. Lord and Queen. Aunt and nephew. The last of their name. They are equals in this matter of the heart and soul. For that reason, too, what may come of the war’s end is as much his responsibility as it is hers. He says it again. “I will not make a fool of you.”

“Then be swift, my love.” She presses a kiss to his cheek, lingering gently. His eyes fall shut now. “I will build a new world and I want you there with me. I can  _take_ you there.”

“Daenerys,” he says again, for it is the tune of his heart. “I want to be with you.”

“Tell me,” she prompts, patient and soft, as she bears her neck for his kiss because he can’t resist anymore. “What does it look like?”

Sweeping his nose under her ear, he gulps.

“I…I would let you burn the world if that’s what it took to see your sovereignty at work.” Jon aches, feels the same rush he did at seeing her before the north gate of the Red Keep, hearing her thank her fighting men for fulfilling their promises and declare Grey Worm as her Master of War… How strong and safe he had felt in her shadow, as ash fell from the sky like snow! She palms his heart and he curls his fingers over hers, face drawn. “How could the gods approve?”

She looks at him meaningfully. “They have already spoken.”

He marvels. When  _Drogon’s_  wings clap in the distance, Jon knows the dragon feels it, too: a certain sweetness running deep into the heart and the soul; a special love bubbling up to the surface of his awareness…  _Grace…_  Grasping at understanding, he whispers her earlier words. 

“The world is undeserving, and we risk our lives to convict it of its injustice. But we don’t burn in the fire, and when we die we are brought back to life.”

“Yes,” Daenerys sings. “You and I, Jon. We will liberate the world. This is our reason.”

“For we are…born-again.”

“ _Yes_.”

“And we know what is good—”

He pauses, uncertain about the words rising from his heart as it skips in his chest. It is no longer strong and fallible, but fleshy and steadfast. She smiles like the moon, waxy and bright.  

“Don’t be afraid. Go on!”

He takes a deep breath. “We were dead in our trespasses, but in their righteousness the gods saved our souls from the pit, and on this side of death we are filled with their light and wisdom. In them, we know what is true and what is good.”

Now it’s her turn to marvel. “Aren’t the Northern gods your own? Yet your words sound like those of R’hllor’s followers?” 

“I suppose, it’s as you said. He has spoken.”

The wind has finally stopped, so he hears her soft gasp rise in the air, and his heart quivers as she winds her arms around his neck, inhaling him, equally overwhelmed at the swelling fullness of this special love. Feeling blessed to receive her, he curls a palm along her side and marvels at her heart beating below layers of thin leather. He understands that in the new birth that came upon them years ago, he and Daenerys became cups designed to overflow, souls meant to be anointed. This joy is but a taste of the love of the gods.

“Be with me, Jon. Build the new world with me.” Her eyes tremble when she pulls back to meet his. “Not as Targaryens. Or a Targaryen and a Stark. Or whatever name you wish to take or garments you wish to wear…”

“You want to marry me?” he murmurs in awe, curling a long hair along his finger and watching her eyes close. “You never asked. I suppose you couldn’t.”

“No,” she agrees as she leans into him, “but I ask you now.”

“I want to say yes.”

“You  _want_?”

“But the others… They are afraid of us. ”

“They don’t want to lose you but I say let them be afraid. It is _I_ who needs you.” She slides her fingers to cradle his jawline and pulls him open as she breathes, “Not them.  _Me._ ” 

He nods, small but so real, made fragile by her vulnerability. He hushes her yearning with his kiss, curling the fingers of the other hand through the soft hairs at the nape of her neck, grateful for the rush of her breath.  _The wise men know nothing,_ he thinks.  _Love and duty do not war_.

“I’m yours, Dany. I’m yours.”

“Yes? Why?”

“Because,” he vows, although words will never be enough, “if I get this right, you will never have to beg again."

She shivers.

"I’ll go with you. What do you need?”

“First… Only you.”

He pulls back enough to look around the throne room. “Here?”

“No!”

“You’re right, I need a bath.”

“Jon—” She laughs lowly, voice rolling. “My love, I didn’t intend that meaning.”

“Even so…" He looks down at himself. "The battle had ended an hour ago, at the vanguard.”

He grimaces at the blood and soot that has caked between layers of leather. But when he looks at her again her eyes are taking him in, and not for the first time he wonders what sort of men she bedded in Essos. He preens, knowing he’s the best of them. The feral nature of his wolf’s blood rises. He bites her lip and enjoys her low moan. Then there is the unyielding tenor of his dragon’s blood, singing just below. He unfurls brightly when gasps into his mouth, painfully soft. She’s clinging to him now, so he easily digs a knee into the exposed stone of the throne room floor, grunting, “Here, then?” 

“ _Yes_.”

She slides her open mouth along his cheek and under his jaw, and he pulls one hand away to squeeze it between her head and the stone. As her fingers pull at him, with the other hand he rucks up the edges of her leather gown, and finds where she is warmest and softest. He moans at how long it’s been since they were  _them_ , as she shivers like a fine silver chain, her hips fluttering around his. He can only kiss her and part his lips as she whispers into him, stuttered, soft, urgent things. Something bright and beautiful rises from his heart and passes from his lips to hers. Older and greater than time, it had passed from the heart tree to man, and the Father to the Mother, and the Lord of Light to his followers, and Azor Ahai to Nissa Nissa, and the Lion-of-the-Night to the Maiden-Made-of-Light.

"I will betroth you to me forever," he whispers. "I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. In love. And in compassion." 

“Yes _,_  Jon,"she says again. "Yes." 

 _"_ Yes? _"_  he grins, shaking.

" _Yes! Vero ñuho dārys issa._ ”

 _Dārys_ _._ He has heard the word once between Missandei and Grey Worm, and that was only because he had unknowingly interrupted their conversation. It was an important hypothetical, but Daenerys had never broached the topic, because Jon couldn't give her reason to trust him, when all he could say to her pleading to keep their shared blood in secrecy was,  _You are my Queen._

But she says it now, and he is so thankful. 

_You are my King._

Just beyond the charred entrance of the Great Hall, the dragon roars.

Jon has been crowned. 

And so it begins. 

 

 

 

_iv._

Tomorrow, he and Daenerys will begin making plans to rebuild King's Landing, provide immediate aid to the farming common folk of the Crownlands, and then they will move to subdue the vassals of the other Six Kingdoms. Once the rubble is cleared in the coming weeks, he will go to prepare Dragonstone for her—for them—and their children, should the gods bless them. By his return, the lords of the Great Houses will have gathered in King's Landing for the great council of 305 AC. They will fight and rage but, deterred by Daenerys's ability to travel quickly on  _Drogon's_  back, they will have no way to undermine her commands once in their holdfasts. Jon will be out of step with his family. He will be out of step with the Seven Kingdoms. But if he and Daenerys have their way, the realm will be brought to heel in a matter of months.

A grim peace will settle over the realm, bringing rise to a slew of bills and laws designed to restrict the nobility's reach and prop up the common folk's access to life's bounty. New roads will be built. Top kingdom posts will be centralized. A new bond system will give rise to prosperous trade relationships with the Free Cities of Essos, returning much of the fortune into public wealth reserves. As Jon and Daenerys move their eyes once more to the slavers’ cities further east, to undo the remnants of their ancestors' empire, they will be out of step with vast swaths of the Known World.

But it is the children of the world who are most important. And sitting with elders meant to guide and protect them, they will learn that on this day, dusted with soot and ash, heart soaring and flesh dying to all things dead and lawless, like transgression and betrayal and scorn, Sixth of His Name or no, a King was made. 

  
  

**Author's Note:**

> for [#jonerysweek2019](https://waterchimesbetweenrocks.tumblr.com/post/185847619107/jonerys-appreciation-week-2019-day-one-seven), with love!


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